Arbeitspapier

Conflict resolution, public goods and patent thickets

Post-grant validity challenges at patent offices rely on the private initiative of third parties to correct mistakes made by patent offices. We hypothesize that incentives to bring post-grant validity challenges are reduced when many firms benefit from revocation of a patent and when firms are caught up in patent thickets. Using data on opposition against patents at the European Patent Office we show that opposition decreases in fields in which many others profit from patent revocations. Moreover, in fields with a large number of mutually blocking patents the incidence of opposition is sharply reduced, particularly among large firms and firms that are caught up directly in patent thickets. These findings indicate that post-grant patent review may not constitute an effective correction device for erroneous patent grants in technologies affected by either patent thickets or highly dispersed patent ownership.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: ESMT Working Paper ; No. 12-04 (R1)

Classification
Management
Property Law
Litigation Process
Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
Subject
intellectual property
opposition
patent litigation
patent thickets
patents
post-grant review
Patent
Zivilprozess
Konfliktregelung
Ökonomischer Anreiz
Öffentliche Güter
EU-Staaten

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Harhoff, Dietmar
von Graevenitz, Georg
Wagner, Stefan
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
European School of Management and Technology (ESMT)
(where)
Berlin
(when)
2013

Handle
URN
urn:nbn:de:101:1-2013071912559
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Harhoff, Dietmar
  • von Graevenitz, Georg
  • Wagner, Stefan
  • European School of Management and Technology (ESMT)

Time of origin

  • 2013

Other Objects (12)